A
Russian Foreign Ministry statement said the foreign ministers would
meet in Lausanne, Switzerland, to "consider possible further steps to
create conditions for the settlement of the Syrian crisis."
Earlier,
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told CNN's Christiane Amanpour
in Moscow that besides Russia and the United States, the meeting should
include Turkey, Saudi Arabia and possibly Qatar.
"We
would like to have a meeting in this narrow format, to have a
businesslike discussion, not another General Assembly-like debate," he
said, referring to the UN General Assembly.
The US position on the discussions was unclear.
The
talks would come at a time when Moscow faces mounting pressure over the
deaths of civilians in the Syrian military's Russian-backed assault on
the Syrian city of Aleppo.
Lavrov
said he hoped the discussion might "launch a serious dialogue on the
basis of the principles contained in the Russian-American deal," the
ceasefire agreement that collapsed last month.
Questioned by Amanpour, Lavrov pointed the finger at the United States for the failure of the deal.
"The
violation of the ceasefire happened by the American coalition who
attacked the Syrian government, which they were not supposed to do, and
which they said they would never plan," he said.
Asked if Russia feared being on the wrong side of history over Aleppo,
Lavrov responded: "It's exactly the 250,000 civilians about whom we
think -- we say, if it takes getting a couple of thousand terrorists out
of the city to save a quarter of a million lives, then let's do it."
Shown a picture of Omran Daqneesh, the
five-year-old Syrian boy who sat shell-shocked in an Aleppo ambulance
after his family's home was bombed in an airstrike, Lavrov said the
situation was tragic for families like his.
"It's
really a tragedy, and they must insist that the moderates who want to
protect them, they must separate themselves from Al Nusra," he said,
referring to the Islamist rebel group.
Lavrov also said war crimes in Syria "must be investigated."
At
least 25 people were killed and 45 injured in airstrikes Wednesday on
the besieged rebel-held neighborhoods of eastern Aleppo, according to
the Syria Civil Defense volunteer group, also known as the White
Helmets.
On Tuesday, 41 people were killed in renewed airstrikes on east Aleppo after six days of relative calm.
The
UN children's agency, Unicef, condemned a strike on an elementary
school in the southern Syrian city of Daraa on Tuesday which killed five
children aged 4 to 16, and injured 15 others.
The
Syrian state media and a UK-based monitoring group, the Syrian
Observatory for Human Rights, said rebel forces had shelled the
government-held al-Shahari neighborhood, but it was unclear which rebel
faction was responsible.
"Death and injury of children in Syria has become a daily reality," Unicef said. "The killing must stop."
"We would like to have a meeting in this
narrow format, to have a businesslike discussion, not another General
Assembly-like debate," he said, referring to the UN General Assembly.
The US position on the discussions was unclear.
The
talks would come at a time when Moscow faces mounting pressure over the
deaths of civilians in the Syrian military's Russian-backed assault on
the Syrian city of Aleppo.
Lavrov
said he hoped the discussion might "launch a serious dialogue on the
basis of the principles contained in the Russian-American deal," the
ceasefire agreement that collapsed last month.
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